Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The origin of tortellini is very cloudy, and several stories exist regarding how it was invented. This one is my favorite, and it totally sounds like something a chef would do! This comes to us compliments of Wikipedia:

“One legend says that this dish is born in Castelfranco Emilia (province of Modena). One night during a trip, Lucrezia Borgia checked into an inn in the small town. The host was captivated by her beauty and couldn't resist the urge to peek into her room through the keyhole. The light inside the bedroom was only made by a few candles and so he could only see her navel. This pure and innocent vision was enough to send him into an ecstasy that inspired him to create the tortellini that night.”

If you watched the Wonton clip, we are using the same fold here. So, after making these two dishes, you should really have that technique down. This is a very adaptable recipe as you can use almost any seafood in the stuffing. Even left-over cooked salmon would work. I went with a very light lemon cream sauce with just a touch of parmesan, but these tortellini are also very nice in a light broth, if you want to go low-cal. The combo of Salmon, Peas and Tarragon is a culinary classic, and works perfectly with the sauce here. Enjoy!

I recently discovered this site and thanks to you, the house hasn't been cleaned since--all I do is watch all your videos. They're great!!! Thanks.I have a question about lemon zest. Is there a problem using a microplane? I use mine all the time. It seems to work fine and is a great time saver.

What an excellent recipe! I just tried it this past weekend, and it turned out fabulous. I plugged your site in a LiveJournal post about this dish. (In which I took a couple of 'not as beautiful as your food photos' food photos.)

Thanks so much for all your hard work! Please keep the videos coming! - Kirsten

I have now made this recipe 3 times and has been a delicious hit every time! I think the rule is so long as the ingredients are fresh, you can tweak fillings and herbs around every time and it's still great!